


Things You Said

by Minako1x2



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Brotp, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky's POV, Ficlet, Hospital, Hurt, Implied Angst, Kisses, M/M, Post-Winter Soldier, Recovery, Steve's Pov, Sweet, Things you said too quietly, Things you said when you were scared, Thoughts of Self-harm, a fall, but only in the heat of the moment, but then again maybe it is, might not be as bad as it seems, prompt, sam wilson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minako1x2/pseuds/Minako1x2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Writing Prompt-- Things you said too quietly. Stucky. </p><p>The fall had been quick. And yet it had felt like an eternity.<br/>Bucky’d had enough falls for more than one life time. Literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

The fall had been quick. And yet it had felt like an eternity.

Bucky’d had enough falls for more than one life time. Literally.

It took a moment. A moment to clear his head after remembering how to breathe--after forcing the air back into his lungs almost as painfully as it had been forced out--to recognize that he was not at the bottom of that godforsaken ravine in Austria, to remember that it was not 1944, and that the source of the strange whirring sound was his left arm.

Everything else was silent. But he was alive. Alive. That was good. Good, because he needed to get to--

Oh god, Steve.

Bucky sat up, battling past the intense pain that shot through his back at the sudden movement. His left arm protested, jerked and twitched and shot hot sparks along his nerves. It was damaged, but it moved. And that was good enough. Debris and dust shifted beneath him, and he felt his flesh hand cut open on a jagged piece of metal.

There’d been no train. Not this time. But there had been train tracks. Train tracks, and a bridge set to blow. Bucky hadn’t made it across in time. He’d made Steve go first. Steve always went first. But then . . .

He hadn’t wanted to come on this godforsaken mission. Hadn’t wanted Steve to go either. Something had sat wrong in his gut as they’d gone over the intel, but it was HYDRA, and they couldn’t let even the smallest faction live long enough to grow another head.

They should have been home.

He’d fallen. Again. And Steve had screamed his name. Again. It had been just like 1944 all over again, except . . .

Except this time Steve had jumped.

Bucky dragged himself the three feet across the ravine floor to where Steve had landed. His love was on his back, uniform torn and bloodied, the white star across his chest a mottled red and black. The shield had rolled away; Bucky remembered vaguely Steve grabbing his arm, pulling him close, and digging the shield into the canyon wall to slow their descent, but even that had given way. Steve’s left arm was bent at his side, the angle of his shoulder all wrong.

“Steve,” Bucky said, wiping away the smear of blood that threatened to run into closed eyes. “Stevie, can you hear me?” He continued to call to him, checking for broken bones, deep lacerations--when he touched the back of Steve’s head his fingers came away bloody. “Steve.” He said it one more time, louder, harsher, more demanding.

Steve stirred, groaned, and mumbled something.

It was too quiet to hear. “What’s that?” Bucky said, thanking god for the response despite its lightness. “You gotta speak up, pal. I’m here. We’re good. God, Steve. What’d you follow me for? You were across. You were safe!” He hadn’t meant to say any of that. Not yet, not while they were still on this ravine floor, bleeding and half-conscious. Bucky held his breath, calmed his nerves. He could yell at Steve later, once they were clear and safe.

“Couldn’t let you fall on your own,” Steve said, his voice ragged and half a whisper. “Not again.”

Bucky suddenly felt like he was choking on his own heart, even as his stomach had fallen to his knees. He gripped Steve’s hand in his. “You’re a punk, ya know that?” This damn, beautiful, idiot. Always with the weight of the world on his back.

“I love you.”

“Shut up.” Bucky kissed him. Kissed him as hard as he dared. Steve still hadn’t opened his eyes, but his lips responded to Bucky’s, weak, but eager. “Shut up and let me think, okay?”

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m right as rain. What’d I just say, huh? Let a guy think. Gonna get us out of here.” He started taking in their surroundings in earnest. His first priority had been Steve, but now the only mission was to get Steve out.

A light sound caught his ear as he calculated the likely angle of the cliff nearest them. He felt Steve squeeze his hand.

“What’s that? Too quiet again, pal. You gotta speak up.” The nearest edge was too steep, but it looked like the wall to the south had a path . . . He looked down at Steve, who hadn’t answered him yet.

“Stevie?”

 

\--“Steve?”


	2. Things You Said When You Were Scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt--Things you said when you were scared. For chorus-the-mutate
> 
> “Please sit down.”  
> It was the third time Natasha had made that request of him, but Bucky still wasn’t any more inclined to oblige than he had been the first time she’d asked. Pacing was better. Pacing gave him something to do. Pacing kept him from exploding and putting a hole in the wall--which he was fairly certain none of the hospital staff would appreciate. He was being considerate. Which was big of him, all things considered.

“Please sit down.”

It was the third time Natasha had made that request of him, but Bucky still wasn’t any more inclined to oblige than he had been the first time she’d asked. Pacing was better. Pacing gave him something to do. Pacing kept him from exploding and putting a hole in the wall--which he was fairly certain none of the hospital staff would appreciate. He was being considerate. Which was big of him, all things considered.

“James.”

“What?” he snapped, jaw clenching, teeth grinding together.

She wasn’t afraid of him. Didn’t even flinch. He loved her for it, was grateful for it, but at that moment she wasn’t giving him the outlet he needed. Desperately. “Sit. Down.”

Bucky’s arm chose that moment to jerk involuntarily. It rained pain along the nerves in his shoulder, down his back, and caused the heavy metal to thump against his own side. He grabbed it, held it still, breathed through the pain.

“Sit,” Natasha said again.

Bucky sat.

She switched seats, taking the chair beside him, and gently set her hand to his aching shoulder. “Tony should be here soon.”

“Why should I care where Stark is?”

“Because he can take a look at your arm.”

“Don’t care.”

Natasha took her hand from him, and though he realized he’d been a jerk, Bucky immediately missed the comforting presence. “It’s causing you a lot of pain.”

“Don’t care. I only care about one thing right now, Nat.”

“I know.”

With his arm quiet for the moment, Bucky used his flesh hand to rub at his face--hoping to rub away the uncomfortable emotions that kept welling up. Backup had come. They’d gotten out of the ravine, but Steve . . . Steve hadn’t been responsive. They’d wrapped his head to staunch the flow of blood, and the med team had taken him the instant they’d been clear to move--Bucky hadn’t gotten more than a hair’s breadth away the entire time. Not until they jet had finally landed, and Nat had pulled him away as Steve had been wheeled into surgery.

That had been over three hours ago.

Steve’s blood was still caked under Bucky’s fingernails. There’d been so much. So much . . .

“He’ll be all right.” Nat’s hand was back, this time her fingers threaded carefully with his metal digits.

“You don’t know that.” God, he hadn’t felt this way since 1939, when Steve’d caught pneumonia--again--and it had taken hold so strongly that Bucky had sat awake all night, counting the seconds between Steve’s breaths. More than once there’d been too much time, long enough that as Bucky held his own breath his lungs began to burn with want of air, and so he’d thumped Steve on the chest. He’d had to. Harder than he would ever want to strike his best friend. But he’d done it. And Steve had breathed again.

They hadn’t let him do it this time. Not this time. When Steve had stopped breathing on the jet.

“I swear, Nat, if he doesn’t make it I’ll . . .”

“He’ll make it.”

“You don’t _know_ that!”

She squeezed his hand, hard enough that he registered the pressure there, and the nerves in his shoulder complained. “They still have him. If they didn’t, we would know. He’ll be fine. He’ll survive this. He’s survived a lot worse. Steve’s a fighter. Always has been. You know that better than anyone.”

“But if he doesn’t--I’ll put a bullet in my head, Nat. Swear I will.”

“Stop it.” Her hand was on his face now, forcing him to look at her, her grip on his chin strong and unrelenting. “Stop. Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. You’re scared, I know, but he wouldn’t want you talking like that, and neither do I.”

His face felt wet, and if it were anyone other than Natasha Bucky thought he might be embarrassed, but he couldn’t care. Breathing hurt. His throat felt tight. “I can’t lose him. I can’t. I’ve got nothin’ if he’s gone.”

“That’s not entirely true, and you know it.”

“If he’s de--”

“Don’t.” She released his chin, pressed her fingers to his lips to silence him. “Don’t say it. You’re stuck in your head. You know that’s a dangerous place to be. Come back. Come here, with me. Stay here. Let me make the contingency plans. I’ve got this, no matter what happens. You understand? I’ve got you.”

He looked at her, those sharp eyes, and stern expression. There was shine to her eyes that told him she had her own tears to shed, but she held strong. For him. Natasha. Natalia. So much like him, and yet better, stronger. She’d always been stronger, even when she’d just been a kid caught in the spider’s web that was the Red Room. He trusted her. Trusted her with his life. With Steve’s life.

He focused on that now, and somehow managed to nod.

“Good,” she said, and placed a kiss on his cheek. Then she cradled the back of his head in one hand, and coaxed him forward until his forehead rested against her shoulder.

She held him there, like that, silent and strong, until the doors at the end of the hall opened and the doctors came out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I can't help myself...
> 
> Send me more prompts to keep the story going!! ^_^  
> Prompts here on [tumblr](http://minako1x2.tumblr.com/post/131655934001/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a)


	3. Things You Said When You Were Crying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt (one of many) from @Mahtayyar ^_~  
> Angst was desired, angst has been (hopefully) delivered. 
> 
> Intensive Care Unit. ICU. Bucky was learning new things all the time.  
> The ICU was quiet aside from the constant hum and beeping of dozens of machines, the scuffle of those rubber shoes nurses liked so much, and the scratch of pens against charts. The ICU was better than the morgue.  
> He kept telling himself that.

Intensive Care Unit. ICU. Bucky was learning new things all the time.

The ICU was quiet aside from the constant hum and beeping of dozens of machines, the scuffle of those rubber shoes nurses liked so much, and the scratch of pens against charts. The ICU was better than the morgue.

He kept telling himself that.

They hadn’t wanted to let him stay. It was apparently against the rules. Bucky didn’t know the details, but after Natasha had taken the doctors aside, an orderly had brought a chair and a spare cot. Bucky’d been sitting in said chair ever since.

Steve’s hand was colder than usual. Normally, Steve’s body ran like a furnace, his metabolism burning at a rate that kept away the ghost of the cold that chased Bucky down every night. He had no such comfort as he sat there in the dark, struggling to stay awake, listening to the eerily steady rhythm of Steve’s mechanically guided breathing. He kissed cold and scraped knuckles, wishing they were the lips kept from him by that damned plastic tube--

“Get some rest,” Natasha had said before having to leave him when visiting hours ended, some undetermined amount of time ago. Bucky knew there would be no rest. Not now. Not until Steve woke up. Not until Steve opened his eyes, and said Bucky’s name. Then, and only then, would he even _consider_ using that cot.

He hadn’t been able to focus as the doctors explained to him the extent of Steve’s injuries. All he’d heard was “severe” and “damage” and “heal.” Nat had assured him afterwards that Steve was expected to make a full recovery, but that the injuries were enough to have killed someone without the serum. It would be a few days before they would even allow Steve to wake up. Induced coma.

Bucky hated the thought of anything that wasn’t “natural,” a forced sleep. He and Steve both had had enough of that in their lives. But if it let Steve heal, if it gave him the strength to return, then . . .

Bucky pressed his face to the back of Steve’s hand, damp with his tears, and tried to concentrate on not losing himself to his thoughts. He recited poetry (a hobby he had taken up as part of his own recovery) and told stories of memories he’d recently discovered in his own beat-up mind. He talked to Steve, and he waited.

* * *

 

Everything felt--distant. His toes, his fingers, his thoughts. Distant and out of reach. He was sitting in a park he didn’t quite recognize, enjoying the sun on his face, and the familiar feel of Bucky pressed up against his side. It was perfect. A perfect day. He felt like he was floating, nothing hurt, nothing ached, nothing _felt._ He just was.

And yet . . .

“Stevie.”

“Yeah, Buck?”

“Stevie, please,” Bucky continued, as if Steve had said nothing. “I know they said it would take time, but you gotta--you gotta give me _something_.”

“What, Buck? What do you need?” He turned towards his best friend, his partner, his lover, but Bucky was still gazing out over the park, watching the sun slowly make its descent towards the horizon--as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “Bucky?”

Still nothing. Steve tried to squeeze his hand, but couldn’t move his fingers, couldn’t move his arm. He couldn’t move. He felt the panic begin to rise, felt his chest tighten like it had when he was small and his lungs would give out--but he breathed. Forced, sudden, and outside his control. He breathed in. He breathed out. He breathed in. He breathed out. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow, couldn’t control it. He tried to speak, but nothing came out, his words trapped in his head.

_Bucky, help me._

And then the world went dark. The park gone, the sun a memory, and the warm presence at his side nothing but empty air. Steve couldn’t feel his body, not like he should have been able to. He felt trapped, floating inside it, unable to touch, unable to control it.

He breathed in. He breathed out.

_Bucky!_

“Do you remember, Stevie,” Bucky’s voice came from the darkness, thin and strained, too low and too quiet. “Do you remember that time when we were, I dunno, I think I was thirteen, you were twelve, an’ you caught pneumonia. Again. Two times in one winter. Your ma and I sat by your bed for days, takin’ turns talkin’ to ya, gettin’ you to drink some water or broth. It had been the absolute worst time in my life up ‘till that point. Thankfully, you never scared us again like that for a few years. Not until you were seventeen and picked that fight the day before your birthday--” His last word choked off, only half finished. Steve heard him clear his throat, cough a little, then sniffle. “You wouldn’t remember, I guess. That’s why it was so scary. You were so far gone. So damn gone we weren’t sure we could drag you back.”

Steve’s hand felt a million miles away, but the wetness flowing across it was all too real, and all too present. He tried. He did. But his fingers wouldn’t move, wouldn’t twitch and flex and cling to Bucky’s like he wanted them too.

“What’chya might remember though, is what you told me afterwards,” Bucky said, his voice thick with tears. Steve knew Bucky’s voice, knew every single inflection--how it rose when he was excited, lowered when he was angry, changed octaves when turned on. He’d never heard it much, not when they were kids, because Bucky Barnes always did his damnedest to put on a brave face, but Steve knew the cadence of Bucky’s voice when he cried. Lately, he heard it in the night, after the nightmares had woken them both, and Steve’d had to hold Bucky in his arms, as if he could literally hold him together, keep him in one piece.

He wanted to do that now.

“You said you’d heard me talkin.’ That you’d hung onto that when everything else was dark and far away. That my voice was the line you’d used to find your way back. So I’m talkin.’ I’m gonna keep jabberin’ on until you open your eyes and tell me to shut up. You hear me? I know you do. Follow my voice again, okay? Cause I can’t--” Bucky’s voice broke, his words gone for a moment, swallowed by the sounds of ragged breathing and a closing throat. “Can’t do this without you, Stevie. I can’t.”

He breathed in. He breathed out.

He wanted to cry with him.

_I’m sorry, Bucky. I’m sorry. I hear you. I do. Please keep talking. I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember, but I’m here. Where am I?_

Once more, he willed his hand to move. A finger. Just a single damned finger.

“--Steve?”

The grip around his far away hand tightened. “Steve. Did you just--? Can you--can you do that again?”

Steve tried. He really did. But now he was so exhausted.

He breathed in. He breathed out.

“It’s okay. It’s okay if you can’t,” Bucky said, still nothing but a disembodied voice in the darkness. Distantly, he felt his hand lifted, and lips pressed against it. “I felt that. I did. That was good. That was great, baby. You did so good. Just concentrate on coming back to me now, okay? That’s all that matters. Nothin’ else. You heal, and you wake up when you’re ready. Okay?”

He breathed in. He breathed out. Forced actions that felt terrible, but tied him to whatever world Bucky was in. Steve let it happen. In and out. In and out. He listened to Bucky’s voice--now telling him one of their many Coney Island stories. The one where Steve threw up after the cyclone. It was one of Bucky’s favorites. One of the first memories he’d regained after coming home.

Steve listened. Soon that story gave way to another, and another, until Bucky was relaying the tales of the days when he’d had to find his own way home.

And that gave Steve strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sorry.  
> I'll say I am, but I'm not.
> 
> Send more prompts! Keep this going! I'm having fun! ^_^


	4. Things You Said After You Kissed Me

 

Three days. Three long, agonizing days, coupled with three sleepless nights that still managed to be filled with nightmares. Sam and Nat stayed with him the most, and Bucky was grateful for their constant presence; both of them rocks he could lean on, trust when he felt like his entire existence was about to shatter and crumble into a million pieces.

As promised, he never stopped talking. Well, almost never. Nat forced him to eat, and in return, she or Sam would talk to Steve in his place. But Bucky couldn’t feel at ease until he was once again the one telling the stories. Steve had heard him, had reached for him (even if only with a single finger). He wasn’t about to take away anything that was helping Steve recover, not for longer than absolutely necessary. (Because, as Nat had pointed out, he couldn’t talk to Steve if he passed out from starvation.) So he ate, and he talked with his mouth full, and Sam and Nat filled in the blanks.

It was on the third day, as Bucky was reciting the forty-ninth Shel Silverstein poem he had memorized, that Steve began to stir.

The doctors came in a flurry, having not expected their patient to wake until they had withdrawn the medications keeping him asleep--though Bucky wasn’t surprised in the least--removing the respirator, and checking vitals. Steve was groggy, and less than coherent, but he’d looked Bucky in the eye, and that had been enough. Bucky kissed him, told him to get some rest, then set his head down on Steve’s shoulder and fell asleep himself through his own tears of relief.

When Bucky awoke, it was to shaky fingers carding through his hair. It was so nice, so familiar, that it took him a moment to realize he wasn’t at home, in their bed.

He sat up quickly, immediately seeking that hand with his own. Blue eyes stared back at him, sleepy, but open. “Hey,” Bucky said, a smile spreading over his face.

“Hey,” Steve said back, and it was the sweetest sound Bucky’d heard in a long time.

Twining their fingers together, Bucky brushed Steve’s hair back from his forehead with his metal hand. “You know where you are?”

Steve took a deep breath, let it out slowly, as if the action were affirming in and of itself. “Hospital.”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” He didn’t know which answer he wanted, which would be better, safer.

“I--” For a moment, Steve closed his eyes, and Bucky let him take the time he needed, kissed his hand, his wrist, pressed his lips to that pulse point that reminded him that Steve was alive. Still alive. Always alive. “No,” Steve said finally, after Bucky had lost himself in the rhythm of his heartbeat. “I remember. You gonna tell me I’m an idiot?”

“Maybe later.” Maybe. “How you feelin’? Your head hurt at all?”

“Feels like I got hit by a train.”

“Not funny, Rogers. Gonna chalk that one up to the head injury.”

“Sorry.”

“Seriously, pal, you ever do anything like that again and I swear I’ll--”

Steve grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him down, off balance, kissing him and putting an end to his words. His grip was strong, stronger than Bucky would have expected, and his fingers dug into Bucky’s nape.

It was like the dam burst--and all Bucky’s fear, worry, anger, and relief all came out at once. He kissed Steve back, as hard as he felt he could risk, and as gentle as he always wanted to be, then he pressed his face to Steve’s neck, willing aware the tears that flowed so easily. He breathed calmly, he didn’t sniffle, but the tears came nonetheless.

Steve’s hand found its way back to his hair. “I’m always going to follow you, Buck. Always.”

“I follow you, remember?” He sat up again, wiping the wetness from his face on his sleeve. “That’s the way we do this.”

“Goes both ways. Only fair.”

“Not when cliffs are involved.”

“That means you’re not allowed to jump after me either.”

Bucky snorted. “We both know that’s unlikely. I jump after you even when I barely remember you.”

“It’s all mutual then.” Steve closed his eyes, his hand falling back to his side.

Unable to stand not having some immediate connection, Bucky held that hand again. “It’s always been mutual. Since that playground in 1924.”

A small smile pulled at the edge of Steve’s mouth. “My head hurt then, too.”

“Bad habit of yours. Feel free to quit it anytime.”

“Gimmie something to replace it with?”

Bucky laughed lightly. Steve was trying to look suggestive, but instead only looked tired and in pain. “As soon as we’re home again, sweetheart. Promise.” He kissed him again, making plans to kiss him a million times more. “Get some rest. We’ll be home soon.”

Steve was already drifting, his nod less of an intended gesture and more of a settling into the pillow. But his hand was tight around Bucky’s and for now, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, @zacharypay_Alissa for sending this prompt! (And also a few more which are on their way. ^_~)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. LynneyGinnyJoan made me do it. 
> 
> I'm considering turning this into the beginning of a mini-series. All based around "Things you said" prompts.  
> So if you want more--come see me on tumblr and [choose your prompt](http://minako1x2.tumblr.com/post/131655934001/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) !


End file.
